AR Lottery Made More Money, But Spent Less on Scholarships in May
The Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of May today.
According to the report, the Arkansas Lottery took in roughly $38.5 million, but paid $6.6 million to college scholarships; that comes to 17.2% of the Lottery’s gross revenue–less than half what our neighbors to the south in Louisiana allocate with their lottery, and 2.5% worse than the Lottery’s scholarship funding percentages in April.
In fact, the Arkansas Lottery spent some $786,000 less on scholarships in May than it did in April, despite the fact lottery revenue went up nearly $1 million during that same time.
These reports tell the same story every month: The Arkansas Lottery has been a disaster, as far scholarship funding is concerned, and the solutions lottery officials offer usually revolve around spending more money on advertising or rolling out new lottery games.
The Arkansas Lottery may close Fiscal Year 2016 at the end of this month with $85 million or so allocated for scholarship funding. To make that money, however, the Arkansas Lottery will have enticed Arkansans to spend–and lose–nearly half-a-billion dollars since last July.
Below is a breakdown of the Arkansas Lottery’s scholarship allocations for Fiscal Year 2016.
Month | Gross Lottery Revenue | Paid to Scholarships | % Gross Revenue |
July, 2015 | $ 31,665,651.14 | $ 5,784,683.09 | 18.3% |
August | 31,265,177.55 | 5,490,094.00 | 17.6% |
September | 36,134,389.63 | 6,624,967.11 | 18.3% |
October | 35,261,533.80 | 6,020,642.32 | 17.1% |
November | 32,226,599.28 | 5,725,139.09 | 17.8% |
December | 38,670,746.09 | 6,425,754.66 | 16.6% |
January, 2016 | 58,746,249.00 | 13,831,359.75 | 23.5% |
February | 40,790,144.05 | 4,474,356.06 | 11.0% |
March | 40,579,421.05 | 5,758,892.84 | 14.2% |
April | 37,516,802.47 | 7,392,837.00 | 19.7% |
May | 38,485,146.05 | 6,606,164.94 | 17.2% |
Total | $ 421,341,860.11 | $ 74,134,890.86 | 17.6% |